Village Craftsmen

Ocracoke Newsletter

September 02, 2001

Many of you have had an opportunity to visit us this summer, some are
planning an upcoming Fall vacation, and others are on the island as I write.
Warm greetings to all of you.

If you have been to the Ocrafolk Opry at Deepwater Theater on a Wednesday
evening this summer you are probably familiar with Roy Parsons, native island
musician and raconteur. Roy plays guitar & harmonica, and he yodels!
He played on vaudeville stages years ago, sometimes with the likes of Gene
Autry, and worked in circuses, as well as on dredge boats in Philadelphia.
He returned home a number of years ago to work for Sam Jones, and now the North
Carolina Division of Ferries, and is also a regular at the Opry. Roy has a
great smile, a twinkle in his eye, and a wonderful, if wacky, sense of humor.
He always has a story to relate or a joke to tell, and he is usually the first
to laugh.

On Sunday, August 19, Roy celebrated his 80th birthday with a party at the
Methodist Church Recreation Hall. Family and friends stopped by all
afternoon to extend birthday greetings, share good food, play and sing.
Roy entertained us with songs and stories.

Roy Parsons entertains guests at his 80th birthday
party:

Like many island men in the first half of the twentieth century Roy left
Ocracoke to work up north. He tells this funny story. In New York
City for the very first time as a teenager, Roy was fascinated with the
buildings, the people and all the activity. He arrived in the early
afternoon and found a boarding house in a row of brownstones. Anxious to
see the big city sights, he paid the landlady, stowed his belongings in his room
and set out to explore. He wandered up and down the city blocks for hours
taking in all of the activity and excitement of New York.

Eventually it was time to return to his room. But Roy wasn't used to
blocks and blocks of look-alike houses. He had neglected to write down his
new address! He was lost. Even with the help of a city police officer he
was unable to identify his brownstone from all the others.

Finally he resigned himself to the inevitable. There was no way to find
his way back. As a last resort, he looked up another O'cocker who had
preceded him and so avoided spending the night on the streets. He never
did find his room or his suitcase, but the experience taught him a lesson on
resiliency....and it provided grist for one of Roy's funnier stories.

Ocracoke is, of course, a part of North Carolina, and shares customs and
traditions with other areas of the South. However, many visitors to the
island are surprised to discover this long-time connection with the Northeast.

For most of our history Ocracoke remained isolated from the mainland by
Pamlico Sound, nearly 25 miles wide. It has been only about 40 years since
the first automobile ferry offered regular trips between the island and other
ports in eastern North Carolina. Ferry service to Hatteras Island is only
about a decade older.

For much of the 19th century schooners carried essential goods along the
eastern seaboard and connected cities from New England to Georgia and beyond.
Many Ocracoke natives owned schooners or were captains. As such they
regularly visited the larger northeastern ports of Norfolk, Baltimore,
Philadelphia and New York. It was much more unusual for an O'cocker to
travel to Raleigh or other inland North Carolina cities. My grandparents
were both born on Ocracoke in the late1800's and seldom left the island.
However one place they did visit was New York City....by schooner, of course.

My grandmother's uncle, Isaac O'Neal, died at an early age in Philadelphia in
about 1885. Earlier, back home on the island, another young man, Bob
O'Neal, was dating an attractive young lady. As sometimes happens in
similar situations, Isaac also began to pay attention to this young lady and
eventually wooed her away from Bob. Bob was not very happy about the turn of
events and was heard to remark that if he ever had the chance he would "put
Isaac's lights out."

Before long Isaac shipped out on a schooner and found himself in
Philadelphia. Bob had also signed up as a sailor aboard the same ship.
One fateful evening Isaac was alone on board and decided to walk into the city.
As he stepped onto the gangplank it gave way underneath him and he plunged into
the Delaware river and drowned. He was buried in Philadelphia. When
news of the tragedy reached Ocracoke, islanders remembered Bob's threat and
wondered aloud if he had had anything to do with Isaac's mishap. The
suspicion of a foul deed lingered but the cause of the accident was never fully
determined.

Eventually my grandfather's cousin, Perry Howard, born 1882, also found
himself in Philadelphia. He was a young man at the turn of the century and
looking for work. By then schooner traffic was dwindling and jobs on
sailing vessels were fewer and harder to find. Perry landed himself a
position with the American Dredging Company and soon was promoted to captain.
At the time he is reported to have been the youngest captain on the Delaware
River.

It was not long before a steady stream of island men made their way to the
City of Brotherly Love. Someone early on secured a job with the Army Corps
of Engineers. Within only a few years many of the dredges and tugboats on
the Delaware River had deckhands, mates and captains that hailed from Ocracoke.
My dad left the island in 1927, when he was only 16 years old. Before
moving to Philadelphia he had never seen a brick building, running water, or an
electric light. Spying an empty light socket in his new room he explored by
sticking his finger into the opening. Once was all it took!

My grandmother had always taught my father to be polite and courteous. She
admonished him as a young boy to always greet folks that he would meet along the
sandy lanes on the island. When he arrived in the big city he said it just
about wore him out saying hello to all the people he passed walking down Broad
Street!

By the 1950's there were so many men from Ocracoke living in Philadelphia,
working on the Delaware River that one of them was heard to complain "Damn
that Perry Howard for ever starting this!"

Someone else from home remarked that all one had to do was walk down Delaware
Avenue with a plate of delicious smelling "old drum" (also known as
channel bass) and all the O'cockers would pour out of the rooming houses and
taverns like rats abandoning a sinking ship.

Back home "Old Drum Ocracoke Style" was an island delicacy. I
have many fond memories of sitting at my grandmamma Aliph's table, family all
around, stories and laughter filling the room, savoring a plate piled high with
this distinctive meal.

It is actually as much a ritual or a ceremony as it is a meal.
Nowadays, because of fishing regulations, the meal is usually fixed with puppy
drum, although other fish can be used as well. The following recipe comes
from the Ocracoke
Cookbook and was submitted by Danny and Margaret Garrish:

"Boil drum in lightly salted water until it flakes. In another
pot, boil about two medium potatoes per person. Hard boil two eggs per
person. Dice a good size bowl of onions. Dice and fry-out (render)
salt pork until brown and crunchy.

Assemble at the table, fixing each plate individually. Mash potatoes
with fork, flake drum in with potatoes and sprinkle generously with diced
onion. Add salt, pepper and chop up the hard boiled egg in the mixture,
adding a good helping of cracklings and grease. Sprinkle with vinegar if
desired. Enjoy!

Be sure to mix enough on the first plate. Somehow the second plateful
never tastes as good as the first. Never plan anything for a couple of
hours after you eat this. Just slide under the table and rest a spell.
Don't forget the baked cornbread and lots of butter."

Family & friends at a recent meal of "Drum
Ocracoke Style":A full plate ready for eatin':

All of us at Village Craftsmen hope you have a wonderful Fall, and if we
missed you this summer we hope to see you next year, if not before.

Philip and all the gang at Village Craftsmen

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